And I’m going to be speaking at the Secular Student Alliance annual conference — along with PZ Myers, Dan Barker, Jessica Ahlquist, Jennifer McCreight, David Silverman, Jamila Bey, Hemant Mehta, Amanda Knief, Debbie Goddard, and more totally awesome atheist speakers. Plus there’ll be a game room all day Friday… and this conference is where I will be popping my karaoke cherry, as promised when Team Awesome beat PZ Myers in the Camp Quest fundraising challenge.

Here are the details for all three events. Hope to see some of you there!

EVENT: Atheist Contingent at the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade
TIME: Meeting at 10:30 am
LOCATION: We’re gathering at Assembly Area K on Beale between Mission & Howard in San Francisco. Look for the banners: Atheist Advocates of SF, SF Atheists and East Bay Atheists. Please allow time to deal with walking from the BART Embarcadero Station, etc. There will be no nearby parking.
NOTE: If you’re planning to go, it’d be good if you could RSVP through the Meetup event, so the organizers have an idea of how many marchers to expect. It’s not absolutely necessary, though — you can just show up!
ANOTHER NOTE: Be sure to bring water and sunscreen. We’ll be outside in the sun for a long time.
STILL ANOTHER NOTE: You don’t have to be LGBT to be part of this contingent! Straight allies are welcomed and indeed encouraged. I, for one, would love for the queer community to see a bunch of atheists with signs saying things like, “Straight Atheists Support Gay Rights.”
ONE MORE NOTE: If you’re not in the Bay Area, there might be an atheist contingent in your local Pride Parade! Check with your local atheist group or Pride Parade organizers.

EVENT: Secular Student Alliance annual conference
DATES: July 29-31, 2011
DATE AND TIME OF MY PRESENTATION: Saturday, July 30, 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm
LOCATION: Hitchcock Hall, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
TOPIC: Resistance Is Not Futile: Why Arguing About Religion Is Not A Waste of Time
SUMMARY: Many atheists think that trying to persuade people out of religion never works, and simply alienates people. But debating believers about their beliefs can be effective — in changing people’s minds about religion, as well as in achieving other goals of the atheist community. When does it makes sense to debate about religion? How should we go about it? And what should our expectations be for what these debates can accomplish?
COST: See convention website for details. But a lot cheaper than you’d think — and they have travel grants available, group rates for groups of students coming from the same school, and cheap dorm housing. They really want students to come, and want to make it as east as possible. So come!

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This really makes me wish I could be there! We ad our Pride Parade here in Winnipeg already, I never thought of getting the atheist community together for a march. That would be a good idea, and it would be interesting to see how it would go over here. Winnipeg has been generally pretty open to various religious ceremonies (we have public pagan, Hindu and other spiritual festivals and rituals). I wonder how a public atheist demonstration would go over? Now I want to do this.
Have a great time there and say hi to everyone for me. Tell James Randi he needs to live forever so he can keep being awesome and inspiring and awesome.